Mother Teresa as a Saint?

Discussion in 'Religion & Philosophy' started by Alex, Dec 20, 2015.

  1. Alex

    Alex Senior Investor

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    Do you feel the Pope has the right or authority to declare and make someone a saint? Apparently to gain sainthood you need to have two miracles and it appears that another has been verified.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-35129463

    I personally don't think anyone can decide who should be a saint or not, and this latest miracle where a man has recovered from brain tumors since 2008, how can it ever be 'proven' Mother Teresa had a hand in it seeing as she died in 2007.

    Maybe the church needs some good PR, and this would help? I do believe in miracles and faith, but in this case if she died before he had the tumors, and only now it's being discussed.
     
  2. crimsonghost747

    crimsonghost747 Senior Investor

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    What qualifies as a miracle? The sun coming up used to be a miracle. Then we figured out that it's because we are on a planet that is rotating. I'm sure you get my point.
    And in the end, who cares if she is a saint or not? As you put it very well, who gets to decide that (apparently the pope), why is it him? and what effect does naming her as a saint have on anything?
     
  3. Susimi

    Susimi Senior Investor

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    Really on the fence with this one. Mother Teresa did great things, no denying that if she was the driving force behind the guy recovering from his illness is questionable at best.

    I also think that there are more people who could be classified as saints or failing that persons who really look out for their fellow man so to speak. I reckon they should get some recognition for their work.
     
  4. jfrack

    jfrack Guest

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    Personally, I do not understand why miracles are required aspects of becoming a saint. Mother Teresa lived a very devout and yet public life. She helped the poor in places where they were normally ignored, just a part of life. She spoke out against corruption and immoral behavior. This great women devoted her life to helping those in dire need, and helped thousands herself. Not to mention how many people her order has helped since her passing or when acting when she was not present. I think saint hood should boil down to how the person lived their life, and if they lived it as Jesus lived his. And I believe Mother Teresa did just that.
     
  5. TheApollonian

    TheApollonian Well-Known Member

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    This has been going on for hundreds of years already I don't think the opinion of someone like me can change whether the Pope can canonize someone or not. In any case Mother Teresa is already a Saint in my eyes and this is all just a formality. I think Peter Faver should be a saint already as his followers has been waiting for his canonization for 300 hundreds and he helped found the Jesuit Society.
     
  6. Alex

    Alex Senior Investor

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    Who can verify a miracle? Can it ever be proven. I don't doubt that Mother Teresa did good work, but do we in this day and age need to attach labels to people and classify them?

    I personally don't think anyone should be classified as a saint, and saints should remain in the history books and the Bible.
     
  7. pwarbi

    pwarbi Senior Investor

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    When it comes to who should become a saint or not, if the pipe himself isn't qualified to say, then who is?

    It's not like there's a saint of the month competition and there's a new one picked out, this is something that's quite rare.

    Even those not religious, and that includes me by the way, are aware of the amount of good mother Theresa did in her life, and if that doesn't qualify her to be a saint, then nobody will ever deserve that honour again.
     
  8. kgord

    kgord Senior Investor

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    Well regardless of how she got there, I really think Mother Teresa deserves to be a saint. I mean lets be honest how many of us would be in Calcutta tending to the sick and washing the feet of beggars? i daresay not many. I think she was defintely someone who deserved the fast track to sainthood.
     
  9. Rosyrain

    Rosyrain Senior Investor

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    Mother Teresa was a wonderful woman, but I have a hard time with the whole sainthood thing no matter who it is. I am not sure that any living person would be qualified to call another person a saint.
     
  10. lstryhrn

    lstryhrn Active Member

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    My biggest concern with Mother Teresa was her destructive approach to family planning. How is it possible that she didn’t see the connection between the out-of-control birth rate and the resulting poverty?

    Of course she did. Such is the basis for a long-standing posture on the sanctity of tragedy fomented in Christianity and other religions—that this is "our lot" and is therefore the focus of pity, of pleading, of a kind of grace through misery that is subtext to much theological sophistry. People who act to circumvent the causes, if successful, would somehow make it possible for people to feel some control over their own lives rather than always relying on the church.

    The Catholic Church has long held that an excess birth-rate is a problem, but it is the natural consequence of Original Sin—sex. People should stop fucking. That is the only solution. Yielding to temptation brings misery, a connection they are loathe to abandon by suggesting that science can offer solutions.

    Ironically, in conversation once with a devout Catholic over exactly this issue, the response I got was that it is the responsibility of scientists to come up with ways to feed and clothe all those people, rather than work to curtail an exploding birth-rate.

    There is no hypocrisy in this when you grasp the fundamental embrace of human tragedy innate in so much theology. It is, as I say, "our lot" and therefore we must see to it that it is inevitable.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jul 8, 2016

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